Heinrich Himmler

All of the documents on this Web page were retrieved from the archives of Shamash: The Jewish Internet Consortium. The comments inside the square [ . . . ] brackets were written by Daniel Keren for the Shamash archives.

One basic principal must be the absolute rule for the SS man: we must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else. What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in good blood of our type, we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interest me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be rough and heartless when it is not necessary, that is clear. We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these human animals. But it is a crime against our own blood to worry about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When someone comes to me and says, "I cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it will kill them", then I would have to say, "you are a murderer of your own blood because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die, and they are the sons of German mothers. They are our own blood".

Infantry general staff has special orders with regard to the Donetz area. Get in touch with him immediately. I order you to cooperate as much as you can. The aim to be achieved is that when areas in the Ukraine are evacuated, not a human being, not a single head of cattle, not a hundredweight of cereals and not a railway line remain behind; that not a house remain standing, not a mine is available which is not destroyed for years to come, that there is not a well which is not poisoned. The enemy must really find completely burned and destroyed land. Discuss these things with Stampf straight away and do your absolute best.

Extract from Himmler's address to party comrades, September 7 1940. Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals - Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Off., Vol. IV, p. 1140:

If any Pole has any sexual dealing with a German woman, and by this I mean sexual intercourse, then the man will be hanged right in front of his camp. Then the others will not do it. Besides, provisions will be made that a sufficient number of Polish women and girls will come along as well so that a necessity of this kind is out of the question.

The women will be brought before the courts without mercy, and where the facts are not sufficiently proved--such borderline cases always happen--they will be sent to a concentration camp. This we must do, unless these one million Poles and those hundreds of thousands of workers of alien blood are to inflict untold damage on the German blood. Philosophizing is of no avail in this case. It would be better if we did not have them at all-- we all know that--but we need them.